


When There Is No Fight Left

by gaydisasterdanvers



Series: Fictober 2019 [10]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, I'm so sorry this is like the biggest angst fest you'll ever read, Sanvers - Freeform, i broke my own heart writing this, i'm like seriously so sorry, if you don't like angst don't read this, mention of divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 13:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21055007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaydisasterdanvers/pseuds/gaydisasterdanvers
Summary: "The adrenaline pumps through her veins and she wants to run. And she thinks that must mean something, that her body reacts with the ‘flight’ response instead of ‘fight’. Because maybe the energy to fight is something she gave up months ago. "-Maggie and Alex Danvers have been married for three years but something just doesn't quite fit anymore.





	When There Is No Fight Left

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here's the deal. I have a lot to say about this piece. It took me four days to write. Partially because I had a busy weekend but also because it’s really fucking heavy and it’s also really fucking painful. But there is something super important I need to say about this.
> 
> Marriage can be fucking hard. Okay? I’m not trying to tell you it’s not great sometimes. But it’s hard. Often, media paints it as this perfect fluffy happy fucking picture and it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes the person you love feels like a stranger. And sometimes you do all that you can and it just doesn’t work. So, if you don’t believe in the real side of some relationships, this won’t be the fic for you.
> 
> There isn’t always a bad guy, nor is there always a reason. It just… happens. And this was really hard for me to write because it’s something I struggle with a lot, my feelings and my marriage. So. Sorry to unload that on you but this was the idea that struck me and so we’re going with it.
> 
> If you really want to, you can @ me. I can handle it.
> 
> Also- I realized this is kind of like how the show played out a similar scene but I didn’t realize that till this was already written so, hopefully we can look past that! 
> 
> This also ignores the entire mess that happened in the beginning of season 3, so we’re going to act like the entire kid thing didn’t happen. Okay? Okay.

Written for Tumblr's **[Fictober 2019](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/)**

****Prompt**\- ** _"It's not always like this."_

Like what you read? Find me on **[Tumblr](https://www.gaydisasterdanvers.tumblr.com/) **and send me a prompt!

* * *

It starts like any other Sunday morning. Alex wakes first, carefully places a practiced kiss to her wife’s forehead, and slips from the sheets. A quick trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth before she dresses in athletic clothes, laces her ASICS and leaves with a click of the front door.

  
She runs the same path she’s run nearly every Sunday for the past 3 years. Five miles of pavement that take her along the shore, through the park. Past the DEO and L-Corp, then a loop back to the front entrance to her apartment building. It never takes more than 45 minutes to run the five mile route, and she knows she’ll find a familiar scene as she turns the knob to apartment #405.  
  


Maggie Danvers, formerly Sawyer, is perched on a stool at the island. It’s always the stool closest to the door, never the other two. In front of her, a steaming cup of coffee in her favorite NCPD mug, undoubtedly sweetened with a 1 second squeeze of Agave Nectar. Only 1 second, never more and never less. A splash of coconut milk, just enough to barely lighten the black liquid. Alex had memorized the order after the first time Maggie spent the night over 4 years earlier. Some things never changed.  
  


She peeks up from the newspaper to acknowledge Alex’s return with a tight lipped grin before turning back to the crossword puzzle with the click of her pen.  
  


Alex busies herself at the sink, filling a glass of water which she swallows down without a single stop to breathe. Refills, repeats. She can feel the burn of espresso brown eyes at her back, watching her every move, waiting.  
  


“Are you happy?” Maggie asks suddenly. Quickly. As though she has to force herself to actually ask, yet with a confidence that Alex knows means she has been wanting to ask for a long time before she actually does. Without turning, Alex knows that gaze is still burning holes in the back of her shirt expectantly.  
  


Maggie already knows the answer, she has to, because she has never failed to read Alex like a goddamn book.  
  


Setting the empty glass in the sink, Alex clutches the counter’s edge and bows her head. It’s a loaded question. She knows her answer, she has for some time and she’s honestly shocked it took her partner so long to ask. The adrenaline pumps through her veins and she wants to run. And she thinks that must mean something, that her body reacts with the ‘flight’ response instead of ‘fight’. Because maybe the energy to fight is something she gave up months ago.  
  


“Alex?”  
  


“I don’t know,” she replies so softly it cracks her voice. And it isn’t a complete lie, her answer. She’s happy sometimes. The problem is that most of the times she genuinely feels happy it’s in Maggie’s absence. Turning to face the brunette, she crosses her arms defensively across her chest and presses her hips into the counter behind her, “I don’t know,” she repeats, though louder than before, “sometimes I am, I guess.”  
  


Maggie winces and it drives a wedge further into the fissure in her chest. The Lieutenant (a title earned just a few months earlier) closes her eyes for a moment and when they open they shine with unshed tears before she swallows hard around the next question stuck on her tongue. “Are you happy in this marriage, Danvers?”  
  


“Maggie,” she breathes through the ache spreading like wildfire through her chest. It’s impossible for her to lie, but something at the back of her mind continues to remind her on continuous loop that this is her wife. The first person she truly fell for. Someone who came into her life and helped everything make sense in ways it never had before.  
  


But things were different now. More often than not she fell asleep lonely despite a warm body occupying the spot beside her. There was a disconnect. Maggie is there and Alex’s heart feels like it’s a million fucking miles away. And sometimes Alex can’t help but blame herself, because on paper Maggie is perfect. Successful, intelligent, caring and kind (although she hides it well). She’s gorgeous to boot, with soft chocolate eyes and muscles that flex against any fabric that dare cover her skin.  
  


A catch.  
  


And it makes Alex feel selfish because it isn’t enough anymore.  
  


It isn’t for lack of trying, the awkward place they’re at now. Maggie had been putting forth a solid effort, trying to be more open, to communicate her feelings and anxieties more before lashing out. They tried dating, like they were new and shiny, taking trips to museums and candlelit dinners at restaurants that were a bit outside their typical price range.  
  


Intimacy? They tried that too. Sure, the sex was never bad. But it wasn’t good lately either. A means to an end rather than passion and fire like it had been in the first months as a married couple. As she’s thinking it over, Alex can’t even remember the last time they’ve kissed beyond a swift peck to the lips let alone the last time they’d actually had sex. When it did happen, it was more out of a feeling of necessity than actual desire. It was quick and rehearsed, but it got the job done.  
  


Alex knows Maggie is waiting for an answer but she doesn’t know if she can give one. Saying it means it’s real and that she comes out on the losing end of a marriage that she had thought without a doubt would be her one and done. So, she does what she was trained to do, turns an answer into a question, “Are you?”  
  


“No,” Maggie says and quickly averts her gaze and Alex knows because she feels it too, that if she sees how sad her wife’s eyes look she’s not going to be able to finish the conversation, “I haven’t been in a while.”  
  


“It’s not always like this, it doesn’t have to be. There are good days,” Alex replies, trying her best to sound hopeful but when she smiles it’s tight and forced, unable to reach her eyes, “we have good days, right?”  
  


“Al,” Maggie sighs, “Yeah, there are good moments. Days? Maybe. But we can’t keep doing this to ourselves. You can’t sit there and tell me you’re okay living the rest of your life like this.”  
  


_Unhappy._  
  


“We could work at it, go to therapy,” the redhead suggests knowing full well that both her and Maggie have strong aversions to psychological practices. Because therapy meant being vulnerable in ways neither of them are comfortable with, “we can try?”  
  


“So we can what? Tell some random person our story, let them try to fix us and yeah maybe it works for a few weeks and then what? When it inevitably goes back to this do we just give up then? Or do we act like there isn’t some glaring problem here,” Maggie replies as she gestures between their bodies, “like we’re not two people who can’t face that it’s over?”  
  


Over. As in the end of their story. It feels heavy and final and the weight of the thought is crushing against her sternum. The pressure is suffocating and as much as this is something she saw coming in its own way, it doesn’t make it any easier to stop the hot burn of tears pulsing behind her eyes, “I love you, Maggie. That hasn’t changed.”  
  


Although, maybe it has. Of course, she loves Maggie, how could she not? The woman who literally broke down every single barrier she’d carefully constructed over her adolescence and early adulthood, showed her that she could not only love but be loved in a way she never thought existed outside of the cheesy rom coms she frequented with Kara.   
  


_She loves her_ but doesn’t feel the same jolt of electricity when their lips touch.  
  


_She loves her_ but doesn’t find herself making excuses to be closer, physically.  
  


_She loves her_ but sometimes her body is with Maggie and her mind is wrapped up in someone else.  
  


Because sometimes, she thinks, _she loves her,_ but maybe she’s not quite _in love with her_ anymore.  
  


And that’s the cruelest reality to face.  
  


“Yeah, I love you too, but is that enough?” She breathes a heavy sigh and runs a hand over her forehead and eyes before pinching the bridge of her nose, “Alex, I’m not happy. We’re not happy. Yeah, marriage takes work. But at what point are you just running at walls? At what point do you take what’s left of your pride and walk away?”  
  


“I know, and you’re not wrong. I’m listening, I understand.. I guess I’m just- what are we doing? Are you asking for space?”  
  


Silence stretches between them, heavy and suffocating.  
  


“I think we should meet with a lawyer,” Maggie replies, dropping her eyes to where her fingers wring nervously in her lap. “We both deserve to be happy and right now neither of us are. It isn’t fair.”  
  


It knocks the wind from Alex’s lungs, “Oh.”  
  


_Divorce._ Maggie is suggesting that they _divorce_. It hits like a punch to the gut and her hand flies to her lips because the bile is churning hard in her gut, threatening at the back of her throat. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply to settle her stomach and frazzled nerves, “I don’t think I can do this, Mags. I don’t think I can imagine some sort of life without you in it.”  
  


Maggie sighs, “I’m not saying we can’t be in each other’s lives. I just.. I don’t think it’s like this anymore.”  
  


“I know this is probably something you’re set on but I think I need a few days. Okay? Can you.. just give me a few days? I need to go. I just can’t- right now. I’m not… I’m not ready for the end. I need to get out of here,” she says as she pushes from the counter and grabs her gym bag from beside the front door. Several quick strides and she’s in their bedroom, rifling through the closet and tossing handfuls of clothing into the bag until it’s stuffed to the seams.  
  


Maggie slides off the stool in the kitchen to cross the living space to their open bedroom. She lingers at the corner of the stairs, crossing her arms over her chest as she leans back into the wall, “Al, what difference do you think a few days will make?”  
  


“I don’t know, I just need to figure some things out,” she says quickly, grabbing her toothbrush from the bathroom, hesitating at their jewelry dish on the counter before grabbing her wedding ring and sliding it over the knuckle of her left hand, “I’m going to go to Sam’s…you can stay here.”  
  


“Of course. Sam’s.” she nods, squeezing her eyes shut tight for a beat before she gathers the courage to ask the next question, “Are you-.. damn it are you sleeping with her?” When her eyes open the insecurity and fear of what the response might be shines clear in the deep brown orbs.  
  


“No,” Alex replies quickly, raising her eyes to hold Maggie’s. Alex Danvers might not be the most noble person at all times, but she’s loyal to a fault. Cheating was out of the question, “I wouldn’t-”  
  


“Do you have feelings for her?” Maggie continues before Alex can finish, her hands are shaking, her lower lip quivering just enough that the redhead can see it, “Because I’m pretty sure she definitely has feelings for you.”  
  


“I don’t know Maggie, she’s my friend.”  
  


_The feelings are complicated_, Alex thinks, because the first person she wants to run to when shit hits the fan is always Sam. It wasn’t always like that, and it wasn’t until after things with her wife began to feel tense that she turned to the willowy brunette for support. As a friend, nothing more.  
  


And maybe at some point the feelings changed.  
  


“I was just a friend once, remember?” Maggie replies pointedly.  
  


“It isn’t like that,” she says convincingly, at least, she tries to make herself believe it. Whatever things she feels towards Sam aren’t what has brought them to this point. It had been bad for months, maybe they had just been better at avoiding it.  
  


“Okay,” the brunette lets her hands fall to her sides in defeat before she pushes off from the wall of the bedroom and retreats back to the kitchen. When Alex finishes packing and returns to the kitchen she finds an open bottle of whiskey and two glasses at the counter. Without a word, Maggie pours a single finger of amber liquid in each glass before pushing one towards the taller woman. It’s not even nine a.m. but it doesn’t stop either woman from quickly throwing back the liquor. Maggie pours herself another tilting the bottle to Alex who shakes her head. Maggie throws back the second shot with a wince as it burns a path to her empty stomach. “Listen, Alex. For what it’s worth? I’m sorry. I should’ve been a better wife. A better partner. I- fuck, I tried so hard to not let it come to this."  
  


“This isn’t your fault, Maggie. It isn’t anyone’s fault. But I wish there were something I could do to fix it,”Alex replies on a sigh, her voice defeated. Hesitantly she raises her fingers and allows her knuckle to trace the strong line of Maggie’s jaw, “I don’t know how to face life without you.”  
  


“I know,” Maggie replies and her voice finally cracks against the sob stuck in her throat. Her lips tighten into a thin line as her eyelids flutter, fighting a losing battle with the tears that finally crest the break of her lashes before streaming down her cheeks. Against her better judgement Alex drops the duffel bag at her feet and pulls the smaller woman into her arms, pressing her tight against the broad wall of her chest.  
  


“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers with the press of her lips to Maggie’s hairline. She repeats the phrase over and over until it finally breaks her on a wracking sob. Part of her wants to taste the salt she knows she’ll find against the familiar pull of the woman’s lips, but it hardly feels appropriate to want to come onto anyone in this emotional state. Instead, she peppers soft kisses along her hairline which causes the lieutenant’s hands to fist in her shirt, gasping sobs against the Dri-Fit material.  
  


The little resolve she has left shatters as Maggie falls apart in her arms because Alex can count on one hand the amount of times she’s seen her this devastated. When she found out her mother passed away and nobody told her for two whole months. When she was two minutes too late on a domestic violence call. When her partner was shot in the line of duty. It was painful to see the strong woman so vulnerable then. It was excruciating now. Because for the first time, Alex knows she is the cause.  
  


It stays like that for what feels like hours, clinging to one another like a raft in turbulent seas. The sobs fade to sniffles, and then it’s silent. Another few minutes tick by, the only tell is the soft click of the secondhand on the clock rounding through each minute. She knows it’s selfish, but Alex can’t bring herself to step away. And of course, Maggie knows that Alex won’t make that first move. It’s too final, too much like failure.  
  


And Alex Danvers hates failing.  
  


So, Maggie releases the grip on Alex’s shirt, smoothing her hands over the wrinkled fabric before moving the backs of her hands along her eyes to clear what is left of the tear stains. Delicate fingers trace over Alex’s jaw, pushing the stray auburn hair away from her eyes before thumbs trace over her cheekbones to dry away the lingering moisture. Using gentle pressure, Maggie tilts Alex’s chin to draw their eyes to one another, “It’s going to be okay, Danvers. I mean, not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it’ll be okay. It’ll be different, but we’ll be okay.”  
  


Alex nods against the hold on her cheeks and presses affectionately into Maggie’s right palm, “I love you, Maggie. Always.”  
  


“I know, Al,” Maggie says quietly before pushing up on her bare toes while pulling gently at Alex’s face until their lips meet in a tentative kiss. Sweet and gentle and incredibly heartbreaking how normal it feels while simultaneously feeling so final, “You too. Forever.”  
  


“I’ll be back in a few days,” Alex says with a sniffle, hoisting the heavy bag to her shoulder. For a moment she lingers in the doorway, Maggie a few steps away at the island with her head bowed towards a fresh pour of whiskey in her palms.  
  


“Yeah, I’ll see you,” Maggie says quietly as Alex steps out into the hallway and closes the door behind her.

–

Two days later when she returns to the empty apartment, she finds a neat stack of papers in front of Maggie’s usual seat at the island.

_State of California:  
_ _Declaration for Default or Uncontested Dissolution of Marriage._


End file.
